


Lay Waste with Fire the Hearts of Man

by Mantichoresongs



Category: Da Vinci's Demons
Genre: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Religious Fanaticism, Suicidal Thoughts, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-01-10 02:52:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1153892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mantichoresongs/pseuds/Mantichoresongs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some people would carve out their souls to burn a little brighter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Girolamo dreams  
… and the world stretches out before him as a panorama of burning cities. Their names are heavy on his tongue.  
 _Sodom_  
 _Gomorrah_  
 _Admah_  
 _Zeboiim_  
The flames lick at the depravities they harbour, devouring the squirming, screaming multitude of sinners. He watches as the brimstone eats away at the hubris of the people who believed they could bring angels to their knees. Before his eyes their proud buildings turn to roaring furnaces, stripping them of the jewels they had decked themselves in. The sensuous silks, the furs, the precious metals, all melting with the rest of their play at dignity, their prideful mockery of majesty. _Vanity of vanities_.  
His eyes tear up from the pure waves of heat and light blazing through the cities, from the sheer magnificence of it. Confronted with the sinfulness of the world, the Lord’s mercy seems to him as immeasurable as his ire, _for the sake of ten, I will not destroy it_. Yet even in His wrath, He only shows the people their true reflection: a grotesque mass of writhing meat, thrashing its limbs in pain like it once did in the throes of fornication.

The privilege of being allowed to witness his Lord’s justice be done to his creation renders him speechless, overcome with humility. He is loath to even blink or avert his eyes for a moment, for fear the world will no longer be alight, no longer be so _bright_ , a flaming token of God’s raw power. When the screaming fades (the flames still crackling and hissing and clawing to the Heavens), Girolamo finds his voice again, and it is rough and hoarse and it catches in his throat, but he falls to his knees and prays with a fervour that resonates through his entire being: “Lord, make me a vessel of Thy Heavenly will. Burn away my impurities, my doubts, my limitations and fill me with the fury of Thy wrath.”  
He waits breathlessly for the answer, convinced it will come, convinced God has heard. Looking up, he sees thick black smoke drifting from the charred ruins, rolling over the plains until it completely envelops him, filling his lungs with the rancid smell of burnt flesh.  
A moment of panic when he struggles to breathe and fails, trying not to retch. But then he regains his composure, the perfect serenity of someone who has devoted his entire life to fashioning himself into something that inflicts pain without ever feeling it himself.  
 _Thy will be done_ , he thinks, _whatever it takes_.  
He closes his eyes and deliberately breathes in what he imagines must be Sin in its most undiluted form, allows it to wash over him. Gasping for air he feels the filth enter his body, coursing through his veins and contaminating his blood until it finally finds his heart and nestles itself there, filling him with visions so terrifying, so pleasurable, that he bites his tongue not to cry out. He is burning up, the heat surging through him like it did through the streets of Sodom and he fights not to succumb. Feverishly he tries to collect his thoughts enough to form another prayer. _Purify my flesh and transmogrify my soul to serve Thee, my Lord._  
And then, finally, when the pain becomes more than he can bear, more than even he can deal with, he adds quietly, ashamedly, the secret dream he has cherished for as long as he can remember: _Make me into one of Thine angels_.  
It feels like his head is splitting open, like his body has surrendered so completely that he can neither breathe nor die, just lie there in incredulous shock as his nerves are seared numb and his thoughts lose all coherence. He feels his mind leaving his broken body and rebels against his own weakness. _It cannot end yet, it is not done!_ But when he looks back at his own form lying on the plains of Canaan, when he sees the outstretched wings, dark as pitch and still smouldering, and eyes black and devoid of humanity, he weeps with joy.

He wakes up without wings, but still he thanks God for allowing him a vision of His greatness, for showing him that even one such as himself, who uses the gifts of his mind to manipulate, his tongue to conquer and his hands to kill, can be a servant of the Lord.  
He does not sleep again that night.


	2. Chapter 2

He had enjoyed taunting Il Magnifico. Seeing the man grow pale with fear and fury and tell Girolamo to “assemble the largest army he could find” had almost been too entertaining not to burst out laughing. Within weeks he will have amassed enough men to drag him out of his Palazzo, him and Clarice, that lovely creature whose hand he had kissed so reverently, and their children, and make them stand on the battlements and watch as he slaughters every Florentine in the city, all but one.  
The war engineer working for the Medici family had come to his attention first as the Turk’s new protégé, but since then he had had an intimate encounter with the artist’s talents and he had only narrowly escaped being blown up while… perusing his workshop. Now his interest in him is personal, which means that Da Vinci will be his, will be Rome’s, before the night is over.

The Medici party is a den of depravity, as anticipated. The Florentines paint their faces and cover themselves in pagan costumes to drink and gossip and seduce with lingering gazes and easy smiles, and as the snake in their midst, as Lorenzo is kind enough to point out later that night, he is in his own proper atmosphere. Walking among them, he watches and assesses their weaknesses, distinguishes the wrathful, the greedy and the lustful, notices love affairs and grudges, envy and contempt.  
When he finds Da Vinci in the middle of the crowd, he sees his spy’s alluring ways have had their effect. Leonardo looks at Lorenzo with barely veiled jealousy and Girolamo wonders how much easier it will be to sway him now he is already questioning his loyalty towards his employer.

After dinner he finally approaches his target, who already seems to be expecting him and is carefully studying his half of the key, holding it up to the light as to make sure Girolamo sees it clearly.  
“What do you see?”  
“I believe I just saw someone call you a snake in front of all of those people.”  
“And I see a key that you will be giving to me.”  
Leonardo is sketching, it is impossible to see what. It is a book the Jew has hidden, he says, and he hints that he has already solved part of the riddle.  
“Then I will have you as well.”  
Leonardo scoffs. His arrogance is enticing.  
“How could I possibly surrender myself to Rome?”  
“Perhaps you… value your life?”  
Leonardo looks up at him as if he cannot quite believe what a generic attempt at intimidation that is, but when he sees the deadpan expression that goes with the casual threat, he frowns a little.  
“Not enough to betray Florence.”  
“Then perhaps you value the life of another a little more.”  
He sees Leonardo’s eyes dart to his cousin, so beautiful and suddenly fragile as if she is afraid for her lover’s fate. It amuses him that he cannot tell if it is Lucrezia’s skilled acting or if she is actually concerned for Leonardo now the serpent is so close to his heart.  
“I know desire when I see it.” His voice becomes a husky whisper, “and I am _very_ well versed in the myriad ways of exploiting it.”  
The artist is still hesitant, of course. Girolamo could have guessed he is not the type to be completely swayed by threats to his life, nor is he selfless enough to rashly sacrifice that life for another person’s. No matter, he knows exactly where his weakness truly lies.  
“You know, this doesn’t have to be contentious, Da Vinci. Join us, and the whole of the Vatican’s secret archives can be at your disposal.”  
He hides it well, but Girolamo can see he has hit a nerve. He tries very hard not to smile at his victory.  
“You’re offering me forbidden fruit now.”  
He smirks. “That’s what serpents do, isn’t it?”

He flees the party as soon as it is not entirely rude to do so. Walking the streets of Florence he breathes in its air. It tastes of smoke and sin, that particular acrid tang he remembers so well from his dreams is already present, heralding the city’s downfall. He looks back to the Palazzo and imagines it wreathed in flames and promises: _soon_.  
He is about to retrieve his destrier when someone calls “Riario”, and he narrows his eyes, trying to discern who has the audacity to call him by his last name, instead of his rank or title.  
It is the artist, of course. He is half-drunk, but the wine has merely made him bold, not addled his sharp mind. He looks at Girolamo, clearly estimating how much risk he is taking.  
“Artista?” The name is a provocation as well, for he knows how Leonardo prides himself on being so much more than an artisan.  
“I was wondering how I could be sure you were going to honour our arrangement. Serpents are not known to be the most honourable of God’s creatures.”  
A warning flickers in Girolamo’s eyes, but Leonardo seems to be either too cocky or too drunk to notice. He is courting danger now, Girolamo realises. Out of some self-destructive impulse, out of boredom? He decides to take the bait.  
“And yet I trust in the honour of a drunken addict, a bastard boy who has never known anyone who could compare to his genius, and it has made him lazy, proud and weak.”  
He smiles as he sees the blows hit their mark. There is surprise, mainly. _I know you, I can see you_ , he wants to tell him, and he can. He can see the man’s impatience with a world that is not up to speed with the thoughts tearing his own mind to shreds every night and his feeble attempts to dull their razor-lined claws with depressants. There is loneliness, of course, and the anguished struggle for recognition. But what Girolamo is counting on above all is Leonardo’s cruel disregard for the lives of others when tempted by the promise of progress. Perhaps he does not even need the initial threats Girolamo made to end his and Lucrezia’s life in order to stifle the voice of his conscience and justify turning his back on Florence.  
 _I can use you. You should know not to anger me if you are so easy to play._  
Leonardo stands motionless for a moment, his eyes a cold, distant green. The next moment he is standing closer, too close, leaning forward baring his neck and whispering in his ear: “And yet you want me so desperately.”  
Girolamo feels his hot breath on his cheek, registers with a shock how his own body reacts to his. The humiliation is instantaneous. Leonardo’s tongue traces the line of his jaw and he tenses, grabbing Leonardo by the throat, lashing out like a trapped animal.  
“How dare you provoke me?” His voice a snarl.  
“Think of it this way,” Leonardo manages to rasp, “I may not be used to people who share my way of thinking –” he gasps for breath, “but it seems that neither are you.”  
Girolamo relaxes his grip and the slightly tousled artist coughs and takes a few steps back.  
“Do not ever think you can use me as a pawn, Riario. Two can play that game.”  
And he disappears, swallowed up by darkness, leaving behind a furious and embarrassed count.

When Leonardo betrays him the following day, it does not surprise him, not really (although the gun rather does).


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> /Devil in Disguise starts playing

He should have known Riario would be coming for him, would be coming for his friends and his city and everything he holds dear. Turning down his offer had seemed the only option at the time, although by God it had not been easy. It was the idea of the fabled secret archives, of course, it was the treasure hunt for his past and his future that had tempted him to accept, as well as his attraction to a man who by rights should make him sick to his stomach. That same man has come to Florence now with an army of thousands at his back to burn down the city and claim his prize, unless his demands are met, or unless Leonardo finds, within the precious hours that remain, a way to stop him. He paces through the room, clutching a pomegranate and trying not to remember his hallucinations (he prays they are not visions) of the broken bodies of his friends with Riario standing over them, sword in hand and covered in their blood. His last words to them had been wounding remarks on their stupidity, words that come too easily to his lips and which he always regrets. He wishes he could explain to them the risks of massive escalation of warfare on that scale, the dangers of building weapons that could plunge the following centuries into bloodshed. Above all, though, he curses his own hubris, his blind reliance on his own talents, among which the talent to talk himself out of the shit he got himself into in the first place.  
Dragonetti’s words ring into his ears: “You’re beating a quick path to the everlasting bonfire and you’re dragging us all with you.” In a different context, the good captain was right, of course.  _But this time_ , Leonardo thinks darkly,  _Hell is coming to Florence_.

Something moves in the corner of his eyes, a shadow stepping out of one of the poorly lit corners of the room, and Leonardo’s body tenses up in fear. He breathes in and makes himself look, tells himself that the sooner he confronts it, the sooner this new phantom image will disappear again. Riario stands before him, twirls his dagger lazily and greets him with his customary “Artista”.  
Leonardo blinks and he is still there, standing in the middle of his workshop in his impeccable black coat with that smug little smile playing around his lips and Leonardo finds himself wondering if he has perhaps summoned him by accident while thinking of Hell. His heart is beating so fast now that the edges of his vision pulse and blur and it takes  _effort_ not to show any more fear, but he manages to look up at the apparition defiantly and ask: “What brings you here?”  
“Merely my concern for your wellbeing,” Riario answers, “after refusing an amicable partnership I thought you would be hard at work thwarting my plans or planning an escape. I see I am wrong.”  
He approaches Leonardo slowly and stops a few paces from where the artist is standing.  
“You have snuck into the city in the dead of night to come and gloat?” Leonardo asks incredulously, “After practically declaring war on Florence?”  
Riario comes closer, brushes Leonardo’s face with the leather of his gloves and says softly, pensively, as if he’s only talking to himself: “It’s such a waste to let a mind like yours perish, Da Vinci.” His eyes catch the light of the fire which turns them golden, and Leonardo is struck by the image of him there, standing in the shabby room between semi-functional inventions  and discarded sketches, looking like a celestial creature from a painting of the Annunciation.  
“Now that your position is clear to you,” Riario continues, “I am proposing the same arrangement we agreed on during the Medici party. You would do well to remember, however, that this is the last opportunity you get to choose the right side of this conflict.”  
 _An angel sent down to the Pit_ , Leonardo muses,  _to persuade all things infernal to join God’s cause_.  
“If I come, will Florence be spared?”  
“No,” Riario says, “Florence will embrace Rome or burn.”  
Leonardo remembers the question the count had asked near the alum mines. “Like the Cities of the Plain?”  
Riario smiles. “Precisely.”  
“Then why should I bow now to the man who would kill all which I love?”  
His face is so close to Leonardo’s now, eyes still glinting golden but his mouth cruel as he asks:  
“Isn’t that what you desire?”  
Leonardo feels nauseated by his own arousal. When he feels Riario’s lips on his, his eyes close slowly and all the tension drains from his body. He leans into the kiss and, to his embarrassment, moans against Riario’s mouth. In reply, Riario twists his fingers into his hair and pulls ever so slightly until he has full access to his throat, which he marks, again and again, biting and sucking the skin. There is no tenderness, just the collision of them, the wreckage, and he can’t think beyond the impact of that. He cannot for the life of him think, period, not of Florence, not of his guilt, not of how Rome’s agent should not be on top of him right now or how bad he should feel about any of it. There is only Riario looking increasingly more dishevelled but no less divine, like a thoroughly corrupted angel who has lost his soul but not the beatific expression of someone who has known the grace of God. He strokes the curve of Riario’s neck, his jawline, the matted, damp hair falling over his eyes, and finds himself trying to hold on to the image like he does when he sees something he wants to paint later on, only now he is not sure if he will be able to translate the hunger in those eyes onto the canvas, nor if Riario will let him go now he has Leonardo so utterly at his mercy.  
His shirt is the first thing to go, Riario’s fingers lingering on the key for a second before following the curve of his muscles down, undoing laces swiftly, impatiently, stroking his erection through his trousers before Leonardo feels the leather of those gloves around his cock. He curses and Riario asks in his velvet voice: “Is this what you want?”  
Leonardo bucks against him, desperate to have that sensation again, but Riario stops.  
“You are going to have to tell me what you want.”  
He is trying to turn this into one of his games, trying to gain the upper hand, but Leonardo would rather die than let the hypocrite hear him beg. He grabs Riario by the neck and pulls him down, positioning himself between his legs and savouring the surprise in Riario’s eyes. Slowly he strokes the evidence of the count’s own arousal and has the pleasure to hear him gasp. He unlaces the trousers with his teeth and ignores his own desire to just mount him there and then, instead choosing to lick him from base to tip and feel him shudder involuntarily.  
“What I want,” he says, continuing his slow torture of licking and sucking, grazing his nails softly along Riario’s length, “is for you to fuck me.”  
There is no pretence now. Riario pushes his cock down his throat, his groans probably the first sincere sound he has uttered since he arrived in Florence. Then he regains some semblance of his former self-control and pulls back. Leonardo kicks off his trousers and straddles him, enjoying how defenceless Riario looks when overcome by his own desire, relishing in it like a secret victory before pushing down on his cock and hearing him cry out. His voice is rough now, no longer made of carefully honey-coated malice, but of raw need. Leonardo starts to move slowly, not daring to fuck him as desperately as he would want to because the expression of ecstasy on Riario’s face and the sounds he is making are almost too much to bear. Instead he allows him to set the pace, rolls onto his back when Riario feverishly grabs his shoulders and pulls him down to start fucking Leonardo in earnest. “You’re mine,” he hisses in Leonardo’s ear. “You’re mine. You’re mine.” And Leonardo finds it hard to disagree with him, finds it hard to construct any kind of thought at all, just lets himself be taken roughly. Riario grips his hips to steady himself and his thrusts become harder, his moans deeper. He strokes Leonardo’s cock and grips the back of his neck, pressing his nails into the sensitive nerve endings. They don’t last long. Leonardo comes apart first, his release overwhelming when it tears through him; Riario collapses on top of him breathing raggedly, whispering “fuck”. His eyes are wide now, dark with dilated pupils, and he is looking at Leonardo with an expression that is verging on reverence. The hunger is still there, barely hidden, barely human. It sparks something within Leonardo, a very primal urge to run from the things whose eyes light up at night, but he stays there, pinned down, turned on. There is something incredibly dirty about fucking something that is not quite human, about dragging something sublime down and holding it against you and hearing it whisper profanities against your skin.

Riario releases him and Leonardo dresses with unsteady hands, all the while thinking of what this meant, of what Riario will do to him when he finds out that he cannot own him, that this had not been ownership but surrender. He turns around to find Riario gone, and suspects he already knows.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I didn't intend to write a 3000 word chapter.

It is not even dawn and Leonardo is in his workshop trying to concentrate on packing. It is Easter morning and in a couple of hours the streets will ring with the voices of thousands of people going to church, but for now a blanket of hallowed silence still hangs upon the city. Normally Leo enjoys working after sundown, God knows he has spent many sleepless nights sketching and tinkering to still his mind, but now he has been awake for so long that it feels like he is seeing the world through an opium haze. Nevertheless he works with a nervous energy, starting whenever he hears a noise, looking up anxiously whenever a shadow stirs or an oil lamp flickers.  
In vain he tries to argue with himself, reassuring himself that surely _he_ won’t come now, mere hours before Leonardo sets sail to Pisa, surely he has more important things on his mind, like sacking Florence with his newly acquired pack of hounds from Urbino. _Surely_.

Behind him a floorboard creaks, and he refuses to give in to the urge to turn around.  
The next moment  he feels the cool sharpness of a blade on his throat.  
"You should have run faster,” a familiar voice whispers in mock sympathy, the sound mellow as always, but with an edge more threatening than the dagger pressing against his soft skin. (Leonardo finds himself counting all the veins and arteries it brushes against, absurdly enough, completely unable to think himself out of this.) The blade moves down, and Leo breathes in sharply when it draws blood.  
“Where are they?”  
The _keys_ , of course, what else. His useless mind conjures up images of Riario tied and gagged, and he hears his promises of vengeance again, his eyes glowing with hatred and humiliation.  
“Where are they?” Riario snarls, and the barely contained rage in that question snaps him out of his reverie. There is no room for playful fencing or tempting offers now, and Leonardo is quite sure that Riario won’t fall for his elaborate tricks anymore; he is clearly done playing and way too smart to not have realised how fond Leonardo is of deception, and just how often he relies on it.  
“Alright,” he says, and waits until he feels the pressure of the knife move from his throat before he grabs hold of Riario’s hand in an attempt to disarm him. It’s foolish, it’s desperate, and Riario is prepared for it: Leonardo feels the dagger slash his upper arm as he slams his shoulder into his opponent with all his strength, making them both lose their balance and crash into the table. Having received most of the impact, Riario only slowly registers Leonardo unsheathing his sword, and the wild lash of the dagger comes too late: already the artist is on his feet, weighing the Roman-forged steel in his hand, testing its balance and judging it perfectly adequate to lunge at its original owner.  
Riario smoothly manages to deflect the blow with his dagger and uses the precious seconds Leonardo loses on his overconfident attack to manoeuvre himself into a more advantageous position, waiting calm and poised for the next move. His expression has switched to utter blankness, betraying neither emotion nor intent.  
As Leonardo strikes at him again and again, hitting only air and occasionally the dagger when Riario deflects instead of dodges, he comes to appreciate, despite himself, how good a swordsman his adversary really is. With a catlike grace he turns and circles around Leonardo, anticipating his moves more often than simply reacting to them, all the while trying to exhaust him, to slow him down so he can move closer for his coup de grâce. Even without his sword he is obviously in his element.  
Leonardo comes to the alarming conclusion that Riario by far surpasses the likes of Dragonetti’s scum, and of any Florentine he has ever fought for that matter. He tries to drive the bastard into a corner to make him stop running, but Riario easily sees through him and continues to evade him as effortlessly as the night drawing back from the light of a torch.  
Leonardo’s next attack is too slow, the blade suddenly heavy in his hand, and he knows he has lost before Riario neatly sidesteps and moves in for the kill.  
Instead of finishing him off, however, Riario hits him with such a force he falls down hard, smashing his head against the floorboards.  
Darkness washes over him.  
He knows he is going to lose consciousness, but fear keeps him on the threshold of awareness for a little while longer, keeps him looking, powerless, as Riario lays him on the table he used to anatomise corpses on, recalling those old nightmares he had in the monastery of being dissected alive.  
He welcomes oblivion when it finally comes.

 

Waking up _hurts_ , and more than it usually does. Opening his eyes is torture, as if the light is violent enough to damage his optical nerves, and trying to move his head is worse. His arms and legs don’t react, and upon further investigation that might be because they are strapped to the table. Leonardo moves his wrists tentatively. It is expertly done.  
“How do you like being tied up, artista?” Riario appears before him, that damned dagger in his hand, “I have found I best immobilise you before having a conversation with you. You will forgive me, I am sure.”  
He looks worn-out somehow, Leonardo observes, as if some subtle change has come over him since their last encounter. There is the scar along his cheekbone, of course, but also a gauntness in his face that wasn’t there before. Leonardo wonders  if it is the loss of the keys that has affected him so much. Whatever it is that weighs on the count’s mind, it is clear that beneath the smooth, polished surface, something  volatile has stirred, and that change alarms him. Girolamo Riario is a dangerous man at best, but he prefers him masquerading as a human. He likes the beast better with its claws retracted.  
He winces when he feels the dagger on his neck again, the cold point trailing down to the wound on his clavicles. Leonardo grits his teeth, and the blade is replaced by a soft leather-gloved hand as Riario coats his fingers with blood and licks them absently, smearing his lips with scarlet.  
“Why did you have to betray me?” he asks, his voice without inflection or emotion. “We could have done this together.”  
Leonardo suppresses a shiver. Riario is enjoying this, savouring his revenge like a starved animal.  
“Instead you ally yourself with Florence, a city that stinks of hell, whose people cannot appreciate your mind, but would cheer at the sound of your breaking bones on the wheel.”  
 _Yes, I must say I prefer lying on my own dissecting table with you lapping up my blood_ , Leonardo thinks, but only says: “I have never made a promise. I have never owed you anything.”  
“Conveniently forgetting the night at the Medici party.”  
“Conveniently forgetting you tried to use me.”  
“Isn’t that what we have always been doing?”  
The sensation of slick leather on his neck, his chest. _Oh God, no._  
Riario laughs as Leonardo pulls at restraints that he knows won’t give in.  
“Don’t you want me, Da Vinci?” _You know I am going to have to hurt you afterwards, but first I’ll have your desire, your dignity_ , is what he doesn’t say, but Leonardo knows. Any confrontation with Riario had been like standing on the edge of a lion’s pit, but now it feels like he is only a leaping distance removed from those ravenous, salivating jaws.  
He barely has the time to register the tip of the dagger being wedged underneath his fingernails before Riario kisses him. His mouth tastes of iron ( _blood_ , Leonardo realises) and his tongue drowns out  the sounds of pain Leonardo makes when the blade pierces the incredibly sensitive skin. It hurts more, much more, than a superficial puncture wound should. Riario is looking at him intently, his head slightly tilted, and although there is no obvious enjoyment on his face that would indicate sadism, there is a kind of professional curiosity in his expression that in itself betrays just how _good_ he is at finding people’s breaking point.  
“Now, artista,” he says in his pleasant, sonorous voice, “denailing is a gruesome affair. The long-term damage done to your hands is limited, but the pain…,” his voice trails off, “the pain is exquisite. I could take all day driving you insane with the agony of it, but it seems-” he gestures at the last bits of luggage strewn across the floor “- that we are both on a schedule. Why don’t you make it easy and painless for the both of us and tell me the location of the keys.”  
Leonardo wills himself to look straight into those amber eyes and smiles, showing teeth.  
“You will have to untie me first.”  
Riario laughs mirthlessly. “Not a chance.”  
“Then I’m afraid there is nothing I can do.”  
The knife digs itself into his flesh and no matter how he tries not to, he _screams_ as his nail is dislodged.  The sound dies away when Riario’s fingers tighten around his throat. Panic threatens to break his carefully maintained composure as he looks up at Rome’s finest killer looking every bit the part now.  
“Alright, alright,” he manages to gasp, and the chokehold is released.  
“On the wall on your right, behind the books, there’s a switch.”  
Riario turns and studies the wall, skilful hands finding the lever almost immediately.  
There’s a click and the bookcase swings open easily, revealing a room stocked with shelves upon shelves of parchments.  
Riario looks at him questioningly.  
“Old ideas,” Leonardo clarifies. “There is a hidden compartment behind the statue of Hermes.”  
When Riario turns his attention back to the wall, Leonardo frantically tries to loosen his bonds, blood pounding in his ears.  
“There are five copper pins,” he says, his heart skipping a beat when the cloth of one of his ties rips audibly. “On the wall there is a copper plate with holes in it, like slots. Do you see it?”  
“Yes.”  
“Use the pins to form the constellation of Cassiopeia. There is a star chart there somewhere, but it looks like a crooked ‘M’.”  
“I know what it looks like,” Riario answers softly, touching the panel and studying the bolts, undoubtedly trying to figure out the inner workings of the mechanism.  
“If this is another one of your tricks -”  
“The door will only open when the pins are in the right configuration. If they aren’t, you will know immediately and I will still be tied to my own table.”  He laughs wryly. “I think the chances of me tricking you are fairly slim.”  
He holds his breath, counting the seconds before he hears the pins sliding into place.  
“It’s not working,” Riario mutters, more to himself than to Leonardo. He turns around to the artist, wide-eyed, fear slowly spreading across his face. “What have you -”  
The blast of the explosion swallows the last part of his sentence. Leonardo uses his one free hand to unfasten his other restraints and stumbles across the room to Riario.

A quick inspection tells him that the man is shell-shocked and dazed, his pretty coat torn in some places, but otherwise mostly unscathed. The explosion had been a minor, concentrated one (Leonardo much preferred incapacitating thieves to killing them), and even the damage done to his bookshelves is negligible. He grants himself a moment to admire how beautiful his assailant looks when defenceless, his face without its usual cruel expression, his dark hair dusted with little particles of debris. There is a small cut on his temple and his eyes are glazed, partially closed, his breathing shallow. Leonardo drags him out of the haze of dust that is still settling and moves him to a chair, the long coat catching on the rubble. _Always bloody overdressed, always taking care to be completely covered,  completely detached._ He awkwardly removes Riario’s neckcloth to help him breathe (and ties his hands to the chair with it just to be sure). _By rights I should let you suffocate._ But he doesn’t, and it eats at him because he cannot pinpoint why. Allowing the monster to live goes way past the boundaries of his usual pacifism, well into the territory of suicidal stupidity, which is, admittedly, another thing he is well-acquainted with, but not something he indulges in unless he something has captured his interest so completely that he’d do anything, _anything_ , to understand it.  
 _Or unless you care_ , an unwelcome voice whispers in his mind, but the consequences of that are so unpleasant that he suppresses that alternative entirely.  
His fingers skim Riario’s throat, and he thinks absent-mindedly  how much he resembles a great predator, caught and sedated to be put on display in a cage. The idea leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. Still musing, he follows Riario’s jugular down until the skin becomes irregular under his touch. Pulling aside his shirt, he sees the outline of an old scar, a small circular indent, its slightly reddish colour revealing it to be a burn. Almost immediately beneath it there are other, similar ones, some barely perceptible, others still clearly set off against his pale skin. Apparently they have been inflicted over a long period of time, most of them probably on young skin, accounting for the way the scars have stretched and faded. Leonardo frowns, trying to maintain his cold, analytical mind-set and not to think about the kind of burns that would leave marks like that.  
He glances up at Riario’s face to make sure he is still unconscious and opens his shirt further, revealing a few long cuts from the time some lucky fellow _did_ manage to hit the fucker. But those are a soldier’s scars, nothing unusual, they are not what catches his eye. Along Riario’s hip bones he catches a glimpse of the ragged ends of partially healed gashes, which, upon further investigation, seem to stretch all over his back. He averts his eyes, feeling sick all of a sudden.  
Nico’s words echo in his mind: “He laughed, maestro. I almost pierced his hand and the bastard just _laughed_ at me.” _No wonder if he is used to being scourged like that. Who could raise a hand against him, though? Who would dare? He is a prominent noble, the Captain-General of the Church, nephew of Sixtus, no less.  
_ The thought hits him like ton of bricks. _Sixtus._ Sixtus with his sharp eyes and his commanding voice, who had tried to tempt him with knowledge like Riario had. Sixtus, the decadent god-king with all of Catholic Europe in the palm of his hand.  
He looks up to see Riario watching him motionlessly, but with a ferocity that would have frightened him if he didn’t know his hands were bound behind his back. Quickly he lets go of his shirt and steps back.  
“What are those?” he asks, and bites his tongue at how stupid he sounds. “I mean… Why?”  
“They are what wounds always are,” Riario says evenly. “The price of failure.”  
“How can you serve them, if they… If they do this to you?” There is disgust in his voice, and anger, too. He himself had always found strength in defiance. His father’s attempts to discipline him had only succeeded in making him colder, stranger, more self-reliant and completely resistant to any kind of authority.  
“Rome doesn’t have to justify itself to a depraved artist,” Riario answers flatly.  
“You think it’s justified, do you?” Leo bites back _. And in some sick, twisted way it is. No God has use for an angel who is not absolute and terrifying. No general needs a soldier who is wilful  and fallible.  
_ When he takes a step in Riario’s direction, the man almost unnoticeably tenses. It’s instinctual, the body preparing to run or lash out in self-defence, but it is more than that, Leonardo realises. It is the anticipation of pain. His face looks the same as when they were fighting: strategically unreadable, a defence mechanism of someone used to being hurt, used to the malicious whims of  someone with absolute power. _What have they done_ _to you?_  
When he touches the burn marks, Riario tries not to flinch from him, but Leonardo notices.  
There is no knowing what has happened to the man to make him into what he is, to have fucked him up, broken him and reassembled the pieces into an instrument of divine will, sharp and brilliant and mercilessly single-minded, unable to discern tenderness from violence. _And the Vatican has familiarised him to the scent of sin and sicked him on us all.  
_ “I’m sorry,” he says. _I’m sorry I touched you, I’m sorry for what happened to you, I’m sorry I can’t kill you._  
Riario sneers, all teeth and loathing, and Leonardo turns away abruptly, gathers the bags and satchels scattered across the room, pausing only to take out the keys and hang them around his neck. The weight of them is comforting, but nothing about this feels like victory. It feels like taking a head start, and so he takes the only option still open to him.  
He runs.


	5. Chapter 5

He lost all hope of salvation in the act of taking her life, but that hardly matters now. _If your goal is pure, it makes no difference what means you use to reach it_ , he had whispered to Nico, and behind the sullen façade of the boy he had seen those words strike a chord, but in truth he has long since stopped believing that that rule extends to the afterlife. He has laid down so many corpses before the gates of Heaven, sullied his hands and soul so thoroughly defending his faith that no amount of clemency can wash them clean again, and his dreams of dark transformations no longer offer him any solace. Whatever wings he may have had the fall had reduced to ugly shards of stained glass, and he is all jagged edges now, more than ever.  
 _Blood spiller_ they had called him in their tongue, painting his skin like that of a sacrificial animal, an offering, which he was. He had always been the sword, unwavering judgment. _A means to an end._ A sharp bloodied tool to be used when convenient and discarded when things got too messy. _A blood spiller indeed_.  
“Their own blood or someone else’s?” the artist asked. Smarter than anyone, of course. He knew all along, and Girolamo resents him for it. He was murderer and sacrifice that day, blade and wound, and he felt guilty for his own pain when Zita bled out in his arms. One last selfish, merciless act and he did not deserve to feel sorry for himself when it felt like he had buried the knife in his own chest. Zita had been more than what she had been to him. She had been better than him. Fiercely brave when he was merely fearless, and honourable while he covered up his sins with prayer. But above all, she was able to protect what she loved when everything _he_ loved slipped through his fingers. When she told him there was grace in him, he wanted to believe it as much as she did. But he had listened to her sing in her own language when she thought no one could hear her, her mouth, her soul shaped for those words; he has seen true grace, and it isn’t anything he can ever be.  
 _And if God is not on the side of the gracious, how do I find the strength be His instrument?_  
During the days that follow he seeks solitude to hide something that runs deeper than grief, deeper even than guilt.  
He feels doubt.  
It paralyses him, corrodes him, spreads through his system like delicate fault lines, and for the first in a long, long time, Girolamo Riario feels absolutely powerless.  
At night he is forced to stay in the same cell as Da Vinci and his friends, and none of them sleep very soundly or for very long. Girolamo’s mind is slowly unravelling to threads of razor-sharp spun glass; he is only dimly aware of how tired he is as he goes over the options that are open to him, continuously calculating the odds of success he has in different scenarios, weighing the assets of his companions against the unknown trials ahead of them, developing strategies from what little information he has. Leonardo stirs and turns on his back. His eyes are open, staring fixedly at the ceiling, and Girolamo knows he is thinking about similar things. He takes comfort in that.

When their quest fails and it feels like the last bit of solid ground beneath his feet has turned to quicksand, he is the first one to jump. The leap of faith ( _not a leap, a fall_ he thinks as the air rushes past him) breaks his leg and does worse things still to his dignity. He is dragged to the beach by the artist and Nico, and he bites his lips bloody, but refuses to show how much pain he is in.

Many uncomfortable hours later, Vespucci’s ship appears at the horizon. Leonardo, Nico and Zoroaster do a little impromptu dance on the spot, screaming and laughing and embracing each other, and Girolamo’s heart sinks. _Where am I going_ , he wonders, _if not to Rome? What is left for me?_ He watches Zoroaster race Leonardo those last few yards into the sea, and he suddenly feels indescribably lonely. Eventually Leo and Nico come back for him, and he smiles hollowly. “To salvation then,” he says mockingly. His own voice sounds brittle and unnatural to him and he wishes Leonardo would stop looking at him like he knows how ugly he feels. He stumbles on board with his help and is brought to some cabin, practically reeling from pain at this point, and carefully lowered to a bed. He passes out again almost immediately.

The next time he wakes up, his head throbs and the interior of the cabin is an indistinct blur. He feels cool hands on his fever-heated skin and he is given a carefully measured sip of water. He blinks drowsily and the shape in front of him slowly takes on the features of Leonardo. He doesn’t say anything, so Leo starts, cautiously: “you’ve been out cold for two days now, but most of the fever has passed,” he swallows nervously, “I’ve seen to your leg, and it will mend, but… well… you’ll never be able to fight like that again.”  
Girolamo closes his eyes for a moment.  
“Aren’t you lucky.”  
Leonardo’s smile is an uneasy one.  
“You’ll be able to walk normally within a few months, if all goes well,” he continues. “But the wound was rather severe, so you will keep an ugly scar. I’m sorry, it was the best I could-”  
“Don’t,” Girolamo says, “you know better than anyone I have plenty of those already.”  
It is the first mention of what happened in Florence, their old feuds and fascinations, and they are both silent. It isn’t long before Zoroaster calls from on deck, audibly annoyed, and Leonardo leaves hurriedly. Girolamo hears them quarrel amicably until they are out of earshot and their voices are swallowed up by the monotonous hum of the sea.

Weeks turn into months, and his leg heals only slowly. Normally the weakness of his own body would have infuriated him, now he only detachedly observes how lean he is becoming, how much muscle he is losing, how the strength in his fingers decreases until simple actions like shaving and holding a spoon take up all his energy and focus. Rage and despair eat away at him until he is so utterly exhausted that a state of numb grief takes over and holds him together, somehow, allowing him to go through the motions of recovery.  
Leonardo checks up on him every so often, but always avoids meeting his eyes. Nico’s visits are infrequent, but no matter how guarded he is, the boy somehow seems to appreciate their conversations.  
Sometimes he sees no one for days and sleeps until he loses all notion of time. It takes a long, long while before he learns how to trust his legs to bear his weight again.  
On the best days he sits on the deck somewhere out of the way, feeling the sun on his face and looking at the waves lapping at the ship.  
He does not pray.

“What are you going to do?” Leonardo asks eventually.  
Girolamo looks up at him and his breath hitches. Outside, the sun is setting, and the light catches Leonardo’s hair like he is blazing with some kind of inner fire. _The Sun and the Moon_ , he remembers suddenly. And for a moment, he wants to touch Leonardo’s face, touch some of that light, reflect it, however imperfectly or distortedly. He hates himself for it, pathetic creature, starved of grace, starved of light, hates himself for falling so hard for this man who burns with so bright a flame.   
“I’m going back,” he says softly. “There are things that I must see to.”  
“Will you reconcile with your father? Ask for forgiveness?” A cloud has passed before the sun and Leonardo looks strangely distant now. Cold has seeped into his voice, his tone incredulous, distrustful.  
“No,” Girolamo says. “I cannot be forgiven, and if I could, it would not be within his power.”  
Leonardo’s face softens a little.  
“Rome has made me into what I am,” Girolamo continues, “but it has also provided me with influence. I could raze the Church to the ground by showing the world its true face.” _My face_ , he thinks. _The face of a man who saw Sin in everything he touched, and never looked at his own hands to know the cause_. The smoke rising from Gomorrah burning had smelled of his own blood-soaked soul as it transformed into something monstrous. The thought of it sickens him.  
“I will do anything in my power to depose my father.”  
“What will you do afterwards?” The artist is studying him now with guarded curiosity.  
Girolamo laughs hoarsely. “I don’t expect to survive.”  
“Is that what you expect or what you hope?”  
He smiles at the boldness  of the question. “All my life I have been trained to be an extension of the Lord’s will, to seduce, manipulate and kill those who opposed His Church. I can turn my talents against her, but I cannot survive her destruction.”  
Leonardo hesitates, struggles to find the right tone for their uneasy new alliance. “There are other things… other places you could go.”  
The unspoken offer moves Girolamo.  
“I don’t think you will want a crippled cutthroat beside you on your future treasure hunts.”  
“I want you beside me,” Leonardo says quietly, and Girolamo is surprised at how those words sadden him. He takes the artist’s hand in his and kisses it.  
“You deserve so much more,” he tells him. “You deserve to be surrounded by people like Nico and Zoroaster, people who are whole and full of life, not something tainted like me.”  
Leonardo leans forward and brushes a strand of hair from his eyes.  
“You are more than what the Church has made of you.” There is a fervour in his eyes, conviction, tenderness. Like there had been in Zita’s eyes when she told him there was grace in him. “You are a man of genius – ”  
“I am a blind, arrogant murderer,” Girolamo says bluntly, “I’m – ”  
But Leonardo is kissing him like he has been wanting to for months, and his resolve wavers. He stops himself from returning the kiss.  
“I cannot do it, artista.” He falters, iron self-control slipping like it does so often around this man. “Please,” he gasps, and Leonardo stops, looks at him, part concern, part undisguised lust. He swallows. “I do not have it in me to be an apostate… a renegade.” He bites his teeth not to moan when Leonardo lips move to his jaw, to his neck. “Please…,” he mutters again, more feebly.  
“I can help you,” Leonardo murmurs, “we can do this together.” His hands have slid underneath Girolamo’s shirt and are touching him everywhere, scratching, caressing, and Girolamo is powerless to stop him, cannot, does not want to. His shirt doesn’t last long, and soon enough Leonardo’s talented tongue finds the places that make him shiver.  
“We can bring them down together,” Leonardo whispers, and he shouldn’t be so damn irresistible. “You and me,” the artist is trailing open-mouthed kisses down his abdomen now, “we could lay waste to anything that stands in our way”.   
Girolamo hisses, tangling his fingers in Leo’s hair, but not guiding him down, just holding him there. Leo looks up at him with that rakish little smirk, like he doesn’t grasp the seriousness of what he has just said, but Girolamo knows that he does, he always does, and he doesn’t know how to react. Leonardo sees and leans over him, kisses him, starts grinding against him, and _fuck_ it is almost too much. His mouth goes slack as Girolamo pushes up against him, wincing a little when he has to reposition his leg, but soon finding a rhythm that makes Leo breathe heavily. He enjoys seeing him like that, beautiful, brilliant boy with that cocky grin wiped off his face and just _moaning_ for him. It seems so easy for him to take his pleasure, to let go in a daze of opium or alcohol or sex, to take what he wants without guilt, and Girolamo envies him. It has always been perfect self-discipline or an all-out loss of control for him, no in-betweens, hardly any room for softness or intimacy, not allowing himself to take it slow or let anyone else take control.  
He breathes: “I can’t,” and Leonardo stops, looks at him questioningly. “I can’t just… fuck you,” he says lamely. “I’m sorry, I – ” the sentence breaks off and he can’t seem to find the words. “I don’t want to hurt you.” Touching the artist feels like staining him, ruining him. To kiss him is to mark him like he did in the workshop in Florence when he claimed him, or when he tied him up and tortured him, hunted him down through the sewers, his heart pounding in his ears like an animal aroused by the smell of his prey. He still wants that, he realises with a stab of shame, still wants the fight and chase, the rush of it all, but at the same time he cannot bear the thought of harming him.  
“Don’t be stupid,” Leo says.  
“Come on,” Girolamo laughs roughly, “you of all people know what I can do… What I’ve done – ” _You saw her walk through the shadows of whatever godforsaken world comes after this one._  
“Yes,” Leonardo says, “I do believe you are capable of anything.” Girolamo stares at him, but there is no mocking amusement in his tone, and his eyes are dark and serious.  
“I know the kinds of things you have done,” he continues simply, “and I don’t know how you have managed to do half of them or managed to live with the consequences afterwards. If you must go back to Rome and torch the Vatican to the ground, I will not stop you. But you are mistaken if you think that I will ever,” he brings his mouth close to Girolamo’s ear, “ _ever_ give you the chance to hurt me or my friends again.”  
Girolamo manages to curl his lips into the mask of a smile. “Then you see we cannot continue this.” _Whatever it was to you._  
“On the contrary,” Leonardo says, “I know what you are, I can see you and you are terrifying now because you have so little left to lose, just like you were once terrifying because you had everything to lose.” He pauses, seems to be gauging Girolamo’s reaction. “But even though you feel more like a raw wound than a person, you do not turn back to the Church, and even though you want me in this very moment, you are thinking of what you might do to me instead of indulging in it.”  
“You think any of that matters?” A final, taut string of restraint inside of him has snapped and he’s laughing now, laughs until his voice cracks and he is vaguely aware that he is shaking. _Pathetic_.  
“Riario…” Leonardo begins, and Girolamo looks up at him, still caught off guard by how much he wants this man and how much he wants to drink in his radiance, but also how desperate he is for him to understand he can’t, cannot trust himself –  
Leonardo is touching Girolamo’s face so casually, caressing his jaw, his mouth, looking at him with a fascination that Girolamo finds intoxicating, like he is not just an object of curiosity but something truly awe-inspiring, something akin to the artist.  
“I’m no innocent,” Leonardo says almost kindly. The sun has set completely and in the twilight he looks less ungraspable and more like a man. “I have taken lives, and the regret I felt afterwards did nothing to erase what I had done. No one can forgive us.” He smiles faintly. “No God can be allowed to take our guilt from us.”  
“Heathen,” Girolamo says and Leonardo laughs quietly.  
“I don’t think you can corrupt someone as immoral and debauched as me any further. That would be a feat even for you, count.” He pulls back and gets up. “But I understand you… need to grieve. You want to be alone.”  
“No,” Girolamo says, his own voice sounding weak and raspy to himself. “No, please. I have no strength left for that.”  
Leonardo hesitates a moment before he sits down again. They are silent together for a while before Leonardo starts stroking Girolamo’s hair absently. Girolamo freezes, but Leo keeps going, moves onto his neck, his shoulders, his back. _This isn’t right_ , Girolamo thinks, slightly unnerved. He can deal with lust (Leo is not exactly subtle about wanting to fuck him), he can deal with wanting Leo in return (although allowing himself to want _anyone_ took… some time), but he doesn’t know what to do now suddenly there is _this_ and his body is so hungry for it he involuntarily arches his back to get more.  
“You have become so skinny,” Leonardo breathes, tracing his shoulder blades, his ribs, his hipbones. He licks his way down his spine and Girolamo shivers. Leo’s arms are around him, and he’s strong and warm and he smells of sea, and Girolomo feels fragile and angular but _safe_. Something painful uncoils in his chest and when Leo pulls him closer he lets him, gives in to the man’s soft insistence and leans into him. It is slow, at first, almost lazy. Leonardo seems to want to touch every inch of his skin, taste him, inhale greedy lungsful of scent before he allows himself to push Girolamo back and kiss him. It is messy and uncontrolled and Girolamo can’t get enough. He almost sobs when Leonardo finally grinds against his erection, then pulls back and starts unlacing his trousers hurriedly, before getting rid of his own clothes. He is aching to be touched, to be fucked, and he doesn’t have the patience to put up with Leonardo’s pace.  
 “Please.” He doesn’t know how to ask for what he wants, can’t really think straight anymore, which is a relief beyond words. “Please…”    
He claws at the sheets when Leonardo pushes inside him. It hurts like hell and he bites down on the artist’s shoulder to muffle his scream. Leonardo curses and grabs him by the neck, but does not push him back. At last Girolamo releases him, smooths over the bite with his tongue and whispers “sorry”, his breath hot against Leonardo’s throat. It takes getting used to, not fighting this man, but feeling like he could not overpower Leonardo if he wanted to makes him feel even less at ease. He delicately fits his hands over Leo’s throat, careful not to hurt, stroking the quick pulse of the artery with his thumb. Leo hums and tilts his head back, giving him full access.  
“Do you want me to stop?”  
“No,” Girolamo says almost too quickly.  
“Don’t worry, I will be gentle with you.”  
Girolamo snarls and digs his nails in Leo’s neck, but Leo just laughs, grabs his wrists and pins them down, looms over him, eyes glinting.  
“Or not, of course, if you’d prefer me to be _rough_.” He draws out the last word in a low, delicious voice and Girolamo tries to throw him off half-heartedly, resulting in Leo grabbing him more tightly, holding him still and pressing his entire body against Girolamo’s, who involuntarily rolls his hips to get more contact, more friction, _more_. He wants to flip the man on his back and ride him until the only word from those impudent lips is his name, but he is much too weak and aroused to do more than hold Leo against him and kiss him hungrily.  
Despite his threats, Leonardo is still so, so delicate with him, pulling back and replacing his cock with his fingers, sliding them in gently while keeping Girolamo down like a wounded wild beast who would hurt himself if he were to be set loose. It feels good, but it is not nearly enough.  
Girolamo breathes in sharply when the artist releases him and licks a trail down his stomach to the old scars on his hipbones to – “ _Fuck_ ,” he groans. Leo’s tongue laps all across the length of his cock before being replaced by the hot slickness of his mouth. Girolamo buries his hands in Leo’s ruffled chestnut hair and lets the man have his way with him. He gets dizzyingly close to an orgasm and can only just avoid coming all over Leo’s mouth. “ _Oh God_ ,” he draws out, almost delirious.  
“I love how filthy your voice becomes when you want me,” Leonardo says, “Or when you are really angry.”  
“Is that why you insist on being such a provocative brat?” Girolamo retorts, trying not to sound out of breath.  
“Can’t help you’re such a delight to irritate.”  
“Do you want me to fuck your mouth shut, artista?”  
Leonardo immediately pushes him back and kisses him forcefully. _Finally_. He closes his eyes and responds to the aggression in kind, causing Leo to growl and grab his wrists while forcing his legs apart with his thighs. Girolamo looks up at him with a silent taunt in his eyes, a smug little smirk around his lips, just to see it drive Leo over the edge. Leonardo pushes up inside him and he can’t keep up the pretence of being in control any longer, cries out when the pain and the pleasure threaten to overwhelm him. Every thrust is excruciating and he can’t get enough of it, can’t get enough of Leonardo looking like he is going to devour him, and he wants nothing else, nothing else will ever be enough.  
“Is this how you want it?” Leonardo hisses, pupils wide, looking nothing like his usual self, looking every bit the creature Girolamo has always deep down known him to be: exalted and monstrous and _his_.  
“Yes,” he tells him. “Take me.” He bruises Leo’s throat and it no longer feels like a taint, like a crime. “I want all of you.”  
The choked out noise Leo makes vibrates against his lips and his thrusts become more erratic, more desperate, hitting a spot that makes him shudder and flex his hips to meet Leo’s. He hears himself urge Leo on, voice torn and rough on the verge of breaking, but he is too far gone to stop now and the jagged rhythm is building, faster, harder, until it breaks apart when Leo jolts up into him one final time and it is too much, Girolamo comes with him, orgasms so hard that it feels like he’ll black out.  
They end up lying curled up around each other in a chaos of sex scented sheets.  
“You have made a mess of yourself,” Leonardo murmurs.  
“Hmmm.” He feels sore and tired and, for the first time in longer than he can remember, utterly at peace. He glances up at Leo. “You don’t look much better.”  
Leo smiles and kisses him, and a soft, warm glow spreads through Girolamo’s chest.  
“I could…” he begins, then falters again, “I could follow you,” he says, and Leonardo’s eyes widen.  
“I’d make a very bad god.”          
Girolamo smiles at the insolence. “You wouldn’t be my god.” He pulls him up, presses his lips against Leo’s. “I don’t need a god. But I must have something, someone to protect, someone to follow – ”  
“Until the ends of the earth?” Leonardo grins.  
“Yes.”  
Leo nestles more comfortably against him. “I thought you’d never admit it.”  
“What?”  
“You _like me_ , Riario.”  
He laughs out loud. “Don’t flatter yourself.”  
The artist makes a lazy sound that could be construed as an objection, but ends up falling asleep against him minutes later.

He watches Leo until the stars come out and everything becomes a haze of mysteriously coherent designs, until the sound of the waves breaking against the ship seem to echo the steady rhythm of the rising and falling of Leo’s chest and the moonlight paints his hair with soft halos.  
Then sleep takes him, too.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter in which, surprisingly, all the actual plot happens. I have updated the tags, so if it contains things you find triggering or unpleasant to read about, don't read on.  
> To all of you who have left comments and kudos on the previous chapters, thank you so much! You have given me the self-confidence to continue writing.

It’s two hours past dawn and Girolamo is getting impatient. For the past hour he has been standing in a dewy field a mile outside of Florence, trying to ignore the damp cold seeping through the thick padding of his new coat as well as the high, clear voice of the quaestor that is ringing through the cold morning air. He tries not to reminisce too fondly of how he used to be sent out to eradicate those very same vultures who prey on the weak-minded and the gullible by illicitly selling indulgences for their own gain, and wonders idly if the fact that he has to stand by and listen to one of them soliloquising about the everlasting fire is his penance. Not for the first time he wishes that the artist would hurry up.  
The crowds, however, are spellbound, and soon the shrill voice of the old preacher is replaced by the jingling sound of coins being dropped into the tin cup he is holding out.  
The audience disperses quickly enough after that, and Girolamo growls low in his throat when the quaestor calls out to him:  
“And you, sir, is there no one you wish to keep safe from eternal damnation?”  
Girolamo glares daggers at him, but the old man is not discouraged.  
“You could secure the future of your child in the life hereafter, sir. Or perhaps there is a loved one you want to buy out of Purgatory?”  
The vision of Zita’s shade walking through long lightless corridors fills his mind, and Girolamo freezes.  
Emboldened by this reaction, the pardoner approaches him and clutches the sleeve of his coat. Girolamo practically feels his greedy eyes looking for a purse. _Not just a fraud, a pickpocket, too._ The man smiles a smile full of rotting teeth, still gripping him in an attempt to persuade him or, more likely, cut the coins from his pockets.  
Girolamo’s fingers are itching to draw his dagger, but he gently detaches himself from the pardoner instead.  
“You have had your haul for today, sir. Leave me in peace.”  
The man grabs his upper arm again, his grip surprisingly firm all of a sudden. “No one escapes the Lord’s wrath,” he breathes into Girolamo’s face, “To think one is above His justice is to commit the worst transgression of all, the sin of pride for which Satan himself was cast –”  
“Unhand me.”  
He is used to commanding the elite of the papal troops as well as the occasional ragtag band of mercenaries without ever having to raise his voice, so it seems only natural for the quaestor to bow his head and retreat, all the while eyeing Girolamo fearfully.  
“Forgive me, good sir,” the pardoner stammers, stumbling over his words, and that’s when Girolamo realises he has made a mistake. Almost without thinking he takes a step forward, and the man falls to his knees, wringing his hands in supplication.  
“I did not recognise you,” he shrieks, horror etched on his face, “Count Riario, I am from Forlí, I am your loyal subject, sir, I beg you –”  
It is easy, like everything when practiced so often one could do it in one’s sleep: a smooth, fluid motion, a flash of sunlight hitting metal, a thin, red line (no serration, just quick, surgical precision) and the quaestor is gasping mutely, choking on his own blood.  
He cuts loose the purse hanging from his belt, searches the corpse methodically for other valuables to suggest robbery, then disposes of it.  
When Leonardo returns, Girolamo is sitting on the platform, leisurely eating an apple and appreciating how striking Leo looks on his newly acquired dappled grey stallion. He is leading another horse by the bridle. Girolamo makes an approving sound.  
“A Napolitano.”  
“I could not get you an Andalusian, but Signora Orsini insisted me and my companion be given any two horses of my choice.”  
“I’m sure that if she had known who your companion was, she would have been less inclined to be generous.”  
Leo’s smile never quite reaches his eyes. Girolamo glances at him, but does not ask, instead extends his hand to the Neapolitan, who sniffs it carefully before allowing Girolamo to stroke her glossy black coat.  
“She is beautiful.”  
“I’m glad you like each other.” There is a hollowness to Leonardo’s voice he tries to conceal, but Girolamo notices.  
“What news from Florence?”  
“Federico is dead, as you have no doubt heard.”  
“Your doing?”  
“Clarice’s.”  
“I envy her.”  
“You would not if you had seen what they had done to her.”  
At that moment, another quaestor appears on horseback.  
“Tommaso!” he shouts. “Tommaso, where the devil are you? We need to leave this instant!”  
When he sees Leo and Girolamo, he spurs his horse forward.  
“Gentlemen,” he calls out, “have you perchance seen my associate? Elderly fellow, was doing the Lord’s work selling indulgences here this morning.”  
“Can’t say that I have,” Girolamo says mellifluously.  
The quaestor sighs. “Always the same with these Forlí bastards.” He looks at them to see if he misspoke, then hastily says: “Good day to you,” and gallops off.  
Girolamo mounts his horse. Leo comes up next to him and brushes past the lapels of his coat. When Girolamo looks down he sees several small stains on the black wool, and Leonardo’s hand comes away streaked with red.  
“You are getting sloppy, count,” is all he says, then urges his horse onward. Girolamo smiles despite himself and follows.

They do not speak much during the journey, and Girolamo quietly observes the change that has come over the artist. It is as if a door behind Leonardo’s eyes has swung shut, and he has drawn back inside his head, not really there, not really anywhere. Still there is a silent determination to his actions. He wants to travel fifty miles each day, even though Girolamo sometimes has to insist they take short breaks to rest the horses, which Leonardo grudgingly accepts. When they stop for the night, he always dutifully eats his portion, although he doesn’t seem to mind what he eats, and Girolamo expects he only does it to keep his strength up.  
On the third day, when he has taken care of the horses and a modest campfire is crackling pleasantly, he goes looking for Leonardo, who wandered off as soon as he dismounted.  
He finds him on the edge of a stream, aimlessly throwing pebbles in the water and evidently lost in thought. His clothes and long hair are dripping wet and cling to his body.  
“Leonardo?”  
Leonardo looks up at him, clearly startled, and begins: “I’m sorry, I lost track of time –”  
The motion sends tiny droplets of water running down his face, the cold light turning tanned skin ashen.  
“Will you tell me what happened?” He tries to sound less worried than he feels. Leonardo shrugs, shivers in the evening chill. Girolamo has to refrain from wrapping his coat around him.  
“I was just a bit oblivious, sorry about leaving you to tend to the horses.”  
“In Florence, I mean.”  
Leonardo gives him a dead-eyed stare. “What are you talking about? Nothing happened.”  
 _Stubborn brat_ , he thinks, but concern overshadows his irritation.  
“Don’t lie to me.”  
“It’s… it’s nothing. I don’t – ” Leonardo swallows. “Forget it.” He stumbles past him, slightly swaying on his feet, when Girolamo recognises the signs. He grabs Leo by the shoulder and yanks him back. Like a ragdoll Leo falls against him.  
“What the – ” he groans, blinking drowsily. “What are you doing?”  
“Opium?” Girolamo snarls. “You are taking opium? What the _fuck_ , Leo?”  
“It’s none of your business.”  
“You are coming with me to Rome, for God’s sake. Do you want to have us both killed because you are incapable of going a day without your fix?”  
“I won’t complain of your habit of killing chance passers-by, if you won’t complain of _my_ habits,” Leonardo sneers.  
Girolamo hits him so hard the artist loses his balance and falls down. He growls and struggles to get up, but Girolamo is on him, pinning him down.  
“What happened to you?” he asks. “You are going to tell me right now, or I swear I will leave you here and ride to the Vatican by myself.”  
“No.” There is desperation in his voice. “No, don’t leave. Don’t leave me.” He grips Girolamo’s arm so tightly it hurts. “I’m sorry, I’m… not like you.”  
“What is that supposed to mean?”  
“Andrea. He is – There was nothing I could do.” He stares past Girolamo at something only he can see.  
“Leonardo? Leo?” He shakes the artist. “For Christ’s sake, stay with me.”  
“He’s dead. Carlo killed him. And now he’s after the Book.” Suddenly he giggles, an incredibly disturbing sound. “I tried to kill him and I fell off my horse – ”  
The rest of the sentence dissolves into helpless, manic laughter, which then turns to something resembling sobs.  
Girolamo gets off him and drags him to his feet. “Come on,” he mutters.  
Leonardo leans against him, thoroughly soaking Girolamo’s own clothes, mumbles something about Girolamo being ‘warm’ and lets himself be led to their makeshift camp. Girolamo undresses him quickly, but when he removes his shirt and sees the bloody bandages, his heart almost stops.  
“You’re wounded,” he says dumbly. “Why didn’t you say you were wounded, you idiot?”  
“Didn’t want to jeopardise your mission.”  
Girolamo swallows and begins to undo the bandages, but Leonardo stops him, lays an ice-cold hand on his.  
“No, it’s fine. I am fine.”  
“Shut up. You are very far from fine. Stop lying.” He is angry. Mostly with himself.  
“Don’t leave me,” Leonardo murmurs again, voice still slurred. _This is why he is using opium again. Not just because of Verrocchio, but to be able to stand the pain when riding. He is genuinely afraid I will think he is a nuisance._  
“I am not. I am not leaving you,” he says, swallowing back his pride. “I will never leave you. Now shut up and let me take care of your wound.”  
Leo hums and lets Girolamo tend to him, rub him dry and wrap him in a blanket.  
For a while there is no sound but the sizzling of the fire. Leo stares at the flames so intently Girolamo fears he will go blind.  
“Why did you come with me?” Girolamo asks finally.  
Leo does not answer right away. His hands are clenched to fists so tight his knuckles have gone white.  
“I am going to kill him,” he says, his voice cold, no longer muddled by the opium high. “I am going to kill him and burn down the labyrinth.” He looks at Girolamo, deathly pale and exhausted and positively terrifying. “I need you to help me. I cannot do it alone.”  
 _Of course you can_ , Girolamo wants to say. Leonardo has always shone more brightly and fiercely to him than anything else, drowning out shadow and lesser lights alike, and his aversion to violence never ceases to come as a surprise.  
“Why?” he asks instead. “What do you need me for?”  
Leonardo laughs. “The deaths I have cause were nearly all unintentional or collateral, caused by my own stupid overconfidence.” His mouth twitches. “The truth is, I am worthless as a killer.” He finds Girolamo’s eyes. “You are not.”  
Girolamo bows his head. “You want me to kill them for you?”  
“No.” He hesitates. “I need you to stay. I need your mercilessness, your determination.”  
Girolamo smiles and shakes his head.  
“Leonardo,” he says kindly, “you almost died, climbed onto a horse and rode 150 miles numbed by opiates. You have all the determination you need.” He pauses, considers his words. “And I will be there for the aftermath,” he says. _Although there is nothing I can do to protect you from the ugliness of it._  
“Thank you,” Leo says hoarsely. “Can I… Sleep with you?”  
Girolamo snorts to hide how endearing he finds the question. “Yes… Yes, of course.”  
Leonardo snuggles against Rome’s finest assassin like a child and sighs contently. “How are you going to get inside the Vatican?”  
“Your contraption for breathing under water was ingenious, of course, but I was rather hoping I could use the front gates.”  
Leonardo laughs. “You really think they are going to let you in? How?”  
“I have my ways.”

Two days later, when they dismount from their horses at the first roadside inn they have encountered in a full day, Girolamo finally sees the man he is looking for. To his credit, he blends in perfectly with the other guests, but as soon as his eyes meet those of Girolamo, he rises and follows him to a small room Leo has managed to hire.  
“My lord,” he says, bowing slightly as soon as he is sure they won’t be overheard.  
“Giorgio,” he greets him. “What news from Rome?”  
Giorgio’s eyes flit towards Leonardo lounging lazily in a chair behind them, but he makes no remark. “Everything has been carried out exactly as you instructed, my lord. False rumours have been spread concerning His Holiness, riots have broken out in several districts. ”  
“Which ones?”  
“Borgo, of course. The entire Leonine city, in fact. Gianicolo as well, and all across Monti guards have been trying and failing to keep the peace.”  
“Wait, that is your doing?” Leonardo interrupts.  
Girolamo waves his hand at him to be quiet.  
“What of His Holiness?”  
“Locked away in the Vatican. His travelling plans for Naples to treat with Lorenzo de’Medici and king Alfonso of Naples were put on hold after his cardinals and counsellors agreed unanimously that he would not survive the journey.”  
“Were they bribed?”  
“Evidently. They are of no use at all to Sixtus; he is politically isolated. But this is not a stable situation and it will almost certainly turn to the Pope’s advantage. You must act fast, before –”  
“Rome’s citizens want to see blood and His Holiness sets his guards on them. Or Naples reacts, God forbid. What I don’t understand is why Sixtus listened. He is not one to heed counsel.”  
Giorgio’s face turns sly, and Girolamo is reminded again why he has chosen this particular man to execute his coup.  
“You feigned a direct threat.” His lips curl into an appreciative smile.  
“It was a prisoner actually. Not one of the smarter ones. We dressed him up, gave him a dagger, and told him that if he was able to kill Sixtus, he would walk free. If not, he would be executed regardless.”  
“And?”  
“We set him loose when the Pope was enjoying his afternoon stroll through the gardens. Our man ran at him like a blood-crazed dog. Poor sod. He died before he could come within twenty feet from his target. I ran him through with a crossbow bolt.”  
“Very neat.”  
Giorgio bows lightly at the compliment.  
“His Holiness never thanked me, obviously. Just stood there, surrounded by guards and nuns and his flock of young boys, fuming and raging and shouting at the lot of us with that thunderous voice of his. It felt as if the wrath of Heavens were about to descend upon us.”  
Girolamo has no trouble imagining that.  
“It gave him quite the scare though, stubborn and prideful as he may be. He started taking the situation a lot more seriously then, and actually listened to the counsel of his advisors. He has not been outside since, but there is no knowing when he will strike at the rebels, and strike he will.”  
 _Of course he will strike. He never liked to think of himself as a gutless coward._  
“All of Christendom will heed his call, my lord,” Giorgio says, somewhat hesitantly. He knows Girolamo too well to doubt him, and even if he did, he would be smart enough not to voice it, but nevertheless Girolamo hears the implied _‘are you absolutely one hundred percent certain this will not be a massive, rapidly escalating fuckup, my lord’_ , and he cannot blame him. He has chosen no one but the most loyal men he knows, men whose devotion to their general is stronger than their belief in the Pope, those who know of the women and boys in Sixtus’ bed, of the whimsical cruelty, the monstrosities going on behind closed doors, but he cannot ask them to lay aside their faith. They breathe it, like he did once, and although they may have lost their faith in Sixtus, each and every one of them would rather die than to see the Church of Rome brought low.  
“Not if we give them an alternative.”  
“As you say, my lord.”

After the final arrangements have been made, Giorgio leaves, and Girolamo goes through the plan one last time to calm his mind. He is interrupted by Leonardo, who stirs from the corner in which he has been sitting, sketching.  
“He sounds like you,” he observes, his tone not quite casual.  
“Sorry?”  
“Your man, Giorgio. He sounds a lot like you.”  
Girolamo makes an irritated noise, momentarily distracted from his thoughts.  
“How is that?”  
“You are both so focussed, so single-mindedly goal-driven… It’s disturbing.”  
Girolamo shrugs. “We are soldiers.”  
“It’s not that.” Leonardo twirls the pencil between his fingers, tapping it against his chair absently. Girolamo briefly considers tying his hands to the back of the seat and gagging his pretty mouth so perhaps he could _concentrate_ for a damn second, but in the end decides it would be counterproductive and _highly_ distracting in its own right.  
“It reminds me of what you did to Nico,” the artist says, his pencil perfectly still again.  
“What did I do to Nico?”  
“Don’t feign ignorance, it does not suit you.” Leonardo jumps up and starts pacing restlessly, sketches clasped tightly in his hand. “You changed him, you manipulated him. He has not been the same since he was on that ship with you.”  
“I assure you we only had friendly conversations. That is, friendly on my part. He was initially disinclined to forgive my attempt at killing the dog.”  
“ _Zoroaster_.”  
“Whatever.”  
Leonardo comes closer, carelessly dropping his sketches as he reaches for Girolamo’s face. Girolamo finds himself unable to move, transfixed by those pale green eyes.  
“Sensible people – people who don’t like you, I mean – would say your influence corrupts.” Rough, determined fingers brush over his lips, no doubt smudging them with graphite in the process. “You tempted me with knowledge the first time we met, you terrorised the entirety of Florence with a few murders and some pamphlets, you talked to a boy who hated your guts only to have him eating out of your hand in no time, and now you persuade _papal guards_ to defy their master.” He tilts his head a little, curiosity, a certain admiration even, mingling with the lingering traces of anger as he undoes Girolamo’s shirt. “ _Sensible_ people would say your talents were not of this world, that something as beautiful and vile as you must be supernatural, infernal.” He stops talking for a moment to graze his teeth against Girolamo’s pulse point and Girolamo’s heart stutters and stops. Leonardo smiles against his throat. “Lucifer,” he says softly, more to himself than Girolamo.  
He almost takes a step back; the word is like a punch in the gut.  
“Didn’t you tell me yourself,” he says eventually, “I could not corrupt you?”  
“Did I?” Leo says breathily, his hands all over Girolamo, “it seems you have succeeded regardless. I cannot resist you.”  
“Nico told me a lot, even without wanting to,” he licks his lips, his eyes fixed on Leonardo, calculating how to drive his point home without irreparably damaging the fragile bond of trust between them, “How many times did you lure him and Zo to come along on your adventures? How many times did you risk their lives out of pure carelessness?” His eyes narrow to slits. “You took Zoroaster with you to Wallachia? To the one they call Țepeș, the Impaler? The bloodthirsty lunatic warlord who slaughtered tens of thousands of Turks? I wonder whether you even know how dangerous you are.”  
Leo draws back, surprised. Hurt.  
“No doubt it comforts you, then,” he continues, “thinking of _me_ as the deceiver when you fight with me, or when you fuck me.”  
Leonardo stares at him, incredulous. Then he grabs Girolamo and pushes him against the wall, his fingers digging painfully into Girolamo’s shoulders.  
“What are you saying?” he snarls, “that we are the same? Do a few rash actions really weigh up against all those people you tortured and killed for your precious faith?”  
Girolamo laughs, a weightless, bitter sound. “I distinctly remember you asking me to help you in that particular area only a few days ago.” He doesn’t resist, doesn’t push back, even though he knows he will have bruises tomorrow. “I am not saying we are the same. But we are really not so different as you would like to believe. And who could honestly blame you for not wanting to see that.”  
Leonardo releases him abruptly, paces through the room and rubs his eyes, his temples. “Fuck.”  
“You are so beautiful,” Girolamo muses, “but you would tear the heart out of a man to know its secrets and the sun out of the sky to taste its fire. You don’t get to judge my methods.”  
Leonardo sighs, runs a hand through his long, shaggy hair and smiles wryly. “Seems we’re stuck with each other, then.”  
“So it would seem.”  
“God help us,” Leonardo groans.  
 _God help whoever stands against us._

They part two days later. Neither of them feels the need to make conversation, but as Girolamo hands the reigns of the Neapolitan to Leonardo and hesitantly starts: “Well…”, Leo pulls him towards him and kisses him until they are both out of breath.  
“Oh,” Girolamo says stupidly.  
The artist smells of charcoal and pines, and Girolamo finds himself hungrily breathing in his scent before reluctantly stepping back. Leo hides his unease behind a smile, but Girolamo knows he is anxious by the way he tries in vain to keep his restless hands still.  
“I will come back,” he says, and tries to sound sincere.

His father is sitting on the bed, and, as Girolamo already anticipated, he is surrounded by a swarm of counsellors. The white silk of the Pope’s nightdress stands out sharply against the wine red robes of the cardinals and makes him look pristine and incandescent, like a lighthouse amidst a raging blood-darkened sea. By all appearances he looks like the very embodiment of virtue, but for the child sitting next to him.  
It is a boy barely ten years old, soft dark curls forming a halo around his face. He is beautiful, a beautiful little cherub to be despoiled by the old man who has already snaked his arm possessively around the boy’s waist. When Girolamo enters, Sixtus’ eyes widen in surprise, then narrow again, darting over his son’s gaunt, sun-burnt face.  
“Girolamo,” he greets him in his low, melodious voice.  
Immediately his entourage falls silent.  
“Father.”  
A warning flashes in the old man’s eyes at being addressed as such, but his tone is still saccharine as he asks: “have you come back to me, my son?”  
Girolamo walks across the room and the sea of cardinals parts to let him pass. He looks at his father, his Lord, his God, and awkwardly sinks to his knees. The contact with the unrelenting marble floor sends a stab of pain through his bad leg, already sore from the punishing ride to the Vatican, and the agony bleeds through in his voice.  
“Forgive me for straying from you, Your Holiness.”  
The cardinals look on impassively as Sixtus’ favourite dog resumes his place at his master’s feet. Girolamo, head still bowed, looks up at the old man to see his expression in that one unguarded moment before it slips back behind the mask of implacable authority. His heart beats in his throat as he sees Sixtus wrestle down his basic impulse to hurt him, then ( _thank God_ ) sees a different emotion soften his features. Most of Girolamo’s youth was spent reading his father’s face, detecting his wishes and unpredictable fits of cruelty before Sixtus had the opportunity to act on them, and the flicker of incredulous relief in the man’s eyes is everything he hoped for. As expected, Sixtus, perceptive and paranoid in equal measures, has already started to suspect his cardinals and those closest to him. The return of his most trusted game piece must be like unexpectedly closing his fingers around the hilt of a sword, after blindly groping around for something to defend himself from whatever is out there, closing in on him in the dark. It was worth it, the months of fear mongering, bribing cardinals, politically isolating the pope, whipping the city into a frenzy. Everything has led up to this: Sixtus’ hand on his head, blessing and absolving him before the congregation of cardinals, allowing him to stand beside him once more, the prodigal son, his sword and shield. _There was no other way you would take me back, father._  
“Leave us,” Sixtus says.  
The cardinals bow and smile and nod, and Girolamo finds himself alone with his father, the angelic little boy, and two guards standing behind Sixtus like straight-backed, unwavering shadows. Girolamo bites back the panic when he realises he has never seen them before. Despite the growing pain in his leg he stays on his knees and waits for his father to speak.  
“Girolamo betrayed us, Amadeo,” Sixtus says, contemplatively carding his fingers through the boy’s hair. “He strayed from the path we set him on. He deliberately disobeyed our orders. What are we to do with him?”  
Girolamo’s heart sinks. Amadeo (Girolamo tastes the irony of the name on his tongue: _Beloved by God_ ) looks lost and mutters “I don’t know, Your Holiness”.  
“We are a loving god,” Sixtus muses, “and surely a loving god shows mercy.” A hint of a smile touches his lips. “We shall therefore spare his life. However…” he trails off, “since he has soiled his soul in dark places which the light of Christ has not yet reached, we must mark him again as belonging to the Lord’s flock.”  
The boy’s expression is blank and uncomprehending. A tremor runs through Girolamo’s body.  
“Take off your shirt and sword belt.”  
His heart is beating like the wings of a panicked bird trying to break out of its cage, but he manages to struggle to his feet and unbuckle his belt. His sword and dagger fall clattering to the ground. Suddenly he feels as naked and defenceless as the boy, who looks on wide-eyed and frozen in a dreamy state of denial. _Look away_ , he thinks, horrified at the idea of having a child witness his submission, _you don’t deserve to see this_ , then, in an irrational impulse of panic, _call for help!_ But the boy is as helpless as he is himself, a useless pawn. For some reason unknown to him, the words of his uncle echo through his mind: “ _At any given moment, a stone can be considered to inhabit one of three states: alive, dead or unsettled_ ”. The old man and his games, his plots, his lies. He swallows, tries to steady himself.  
“ _The game can only be won by pursuing seemingly opposing objectives simultaneously_ ,” the voice of his uncle goes on, endlessly patient, playing a long game only he can see the edges of.  
Girolamo closes his eyes. _If I lose this game, I lose all else_.  
When he looks back at Sixtus, the latter is holding a nine-tailed scourge, fondling the knots and appraising his son’s body. Girolamo feels sick, caught somewhere between profound fear and disgust on the one hand, and a persisting self-consciousness of his broken body, his scars and his sinfulness on the other.  
“Stand up straight.”  
He complies, straightens his shoulders, and without wanting to,  
 _Fiant aures tuae intendentes_  
he does what he always does when he is so afraid he can barely form a coherent thought.  
 _in vocem deprecationis meae_  
He prays.  
He needs the words, the comfort of their shape, a barrier between him and his fear.  
He knows his father can’t resist the vulnerability, will not strike until he has gorged himself on the humiliation, so he drags out the spectacle, gives him a show, all the while feverishly rethinking the next step, his next move. The guards are the image of motionless obedience, and there is not the slightest possibility he can overpower them, much less drag his father down to the prison cell and the man who waits there, his own mirror image. L _et the rightful pope decide on the fate of his traitor brother and take his place_ , he thought back in Forlì, sitting safe behind the walls of his city, ruminating about poetic justice. Laying out the pieces of the plan in his mind was challenging, but it seemed elegant at the time, fitting, with all possible scenarios considered. It was nothing like giving up his body once more, nothing like allowing himself to be owned again.  
“ _An opponent who can control the flow of the game by appearing to play defensively is often the most formidable_.”  
 _Damn you for being right_ , old man. He grits his teeth, raises his head and looks his father in the eye. “Anything to serve.”  
The scourge snaps across his back once, and then there is a pause, in which Sixtus slowly circles him, dragging out the expectation of the next blow. When it comes, Girolamo flinches, but makes no sound. With the sixth lash, he stumbles a little, his bad leg trembling badly, but he manages to keep his balance. An eleventh, a twelfth, and he feels blood trickle down his shoulder blades where the knots bit into his flesh. They reach twenty, and he is swaying on his feet.  
“You must allow yourself to be reborn, my son,” Sixtus whispers. “There is no greater glory than to be tested by the Lord and prevail.”  
He does not know when he starts screaming, but somewhere along the way all of existence becomes a haze of pain punctuated by each searing lash.  
 _Just let me get through this_ , he thinks, addressing no one in particular. _Just let me get through this and maybe he will trust me again and allow me near him, and then I will make sure he can never hurt anyone ever again._  
Another flurry of lashes, and his father pauses to survey his work.  
“See, Amadeo? We are giving him his wings back.”  
 _I am not going to survive this_ , he realises suddenly. _This is some bizarre delusion of his. He survived drowning as a child, and now he is bringing me to the brink of death to see if I slip over_.  
He notices he has fallen down when his knees hit the marble and Amadeo starts crying.  
“Silence!” his father shouts, but suddenly finding himself the object of Sixtus’ attention does not do much to silence an eight-year-old, and Amadeo stumbles away from the bed, wailing in fear. He makes for the door, but is roughly apprehended by one of the guards and pushed back into the room. He whimpers and sobs as Sixtus approaches, scourge still in his hand, and the guard gives the boy a hard shove that sends him falling to the ground.  
“Are you hurt, caro mio? Did he hurt you?” Sixtus gives the guard a withering look. “You scared him! Go stand outside.” The guards comply, and Sixtus kneels down to stroke Amadeo’s tearstained face and murmur sweet words into his hair.  
Girolamo tries to shake off the pleasant fog of numbness dragging him down to painless unconsciousness and tries to stand back up again, but his leg is trembling so badly he has to lean against a bedpost.  
 _I’m not dead_ , he thinks distantly. _I need to get out_. He staggers towards the door before he stops. _Can’t. It’s not done yet._ He cannot think clearly, his plans seeming very remote and not as important as getting away, away, leaving the Vatican, leaving Rome, leaving with the artist, his artist, beautiful, glowing. He shakes his head and tries to make the world stop spinning. _I am in shock_ , he registers slowly. _I can’t think, I can’t think_ , he starts to feel the edges of panic underneath the cloudiness, and the pain is not far behind.  
A scream snaps him out of his daze, and he winces when his senses come back to him. Amadeo is still on the floor, struggling uselessly against the old man whose touches have gone from comforting to something else entirely. Girolamo forces himself to think of how many boys he has killed for his father (quickly, _mercifully_ , slitting the throat, piercing the heart), tries to shield himself from the ugliness of it. _One more should not make a difference_. Amadeo screams again ( _Shut up. Shut up, shut up!_ ) and then suddenly there is the weight of the dagger in his hand and steel in his heart, and it is easy, it is easy, nothing but a smooth, fluid motion, a thin, red line, the boy’s face covered in a fine spray of blood, his plump little mouth open in an astonished little ‘o’.  
His father’s hands loosen their grip on the child’s waist and he sags against Amadeo, who crawls away like a terrified animal until he has put enough distance between himself and what is standing over the corpse of the most powerful man in all of Italy. Eerily symmetrical ridged welts stretch across the count’s back, ugly and dark, like wings, as Sixtus said, and eyes of bloodshot amber find the boy’s green ones.  
“I am not going to hurt you.” Girolamo barely recognises his own voice.  
Amadeo’s fear hangs around him, thick and sharp and familiar.  
“No one is going to hurt you now.”

What comes after he only takes in fragmentarily. The boy stumbling over himself to get away from him, blood absolutely everywhere. Cold narrow passageways, the numbness of disbelief coming over him again, Amadeo’s face still burnt onto his retina. Then the soft, insistent pull of the river, the desire to give in and just let go –  
 _There is a place beyond and before the world and that is not Heaven. It exists in the absence of God, and is untouched by time or star fire or hope. It is not home._  
An echoless silence seals him in, a vault of shadow closing overhead. Then the darkness moves in, solidifies around him, gaining substance and something eerily similar to life. Fear grips him by the throat when its tendrils reach out to him, but he cannot move, just lie there in frozen in panic as the shadows coil over his chest, his face, then linger on his lips. The air leaves his lungs.  
Zita is standing before him, her face softly outlined by something that is not quite light. She smiles at him, he thinks it is a smile, and he tries to say her name, but his lips cannot seem to remember how. She leans over him, caresses his face with fingers of shadow. Her mouth tastes of ice and river water, and he kisses her until it feels as if the last bit of warmth has left him, feels he is drifting away, welcomes it, sinks into it. It is a blessing, not having to move on, damned, godless, aimless. _I do not have the heart for it._ The edges of his vision are going even blacker than the liquid darkness pressing in around him, and he closes his eyes, and finally, _finally_ gives in and lets it submerge him.  
A searing pain pulls him back to the surface.  
Zita has buried her nails in his back and is tearing at the skin. He screams in agony and tries to throw her off, but she is too strong, her face betraying nothing but unwavering determination.  
When he manages to grab her hands, he sees they are sticky with blood and something else, something dark and wet, and he feels bile rising in his throat when he realises what it is.  
Feathers, dozens and dozens of black feathers, slick with blood, cling to her hands. His grip weakens and his hands fall to his sides. Zita presses her fingers to his lips again and brings her face so close to his that her eyes become his entire world. She is smiling, smiling, smiling, there is something like light in her eyes, and when she speaks, her words feel like a stab to the heart:  
 _“Did you think you could quietly slip into oblivion, my lord?”_  
His lungs are burning for oxygen. He looks at her in mute despair.  
 _“Did you think I would let you?”_  
 _“I’m sorry,”_ he tells her, again and again, until he chokes on the words, knowing with a terrible certainty that she cannot hear him, and that it would make no difference if she could. He is cold now, so cold, but she clings to him and will not let him die, the pain of her fingers digging into his wounds keeping him on the edge of consciousness.

Then something he vaguely knows to be a human voice breaks through the layers of smothering dark.  
 _Leave me be_ , he thinks. Even the pain is fading now. Soon Zita will be gone too, and there will just be the cold weighing down on him, and the darkness behind his eyelids that makes the overwhelming lightlessness around him seem smaller and more manageable.  
“No!” It’s a howl, a broken sound which he recognises instantly. It is Leonardo, sounding like he is in so much pain in it that Girolamo fights to reach him, but when he tries to speak he is coughing up river water, the effort racking his body. He is taking shuddering breaths, every greedy mouthful of air an instinctive decision to stay alive. His eyes hurt from the light the world is drenched in, a light so dazzling he wonders why he has never seen it like this before, why he ever could have preferred the light of a burning city to this, and then there is Leo grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him rather less gently than his wrecked body can appreciate.  
“You absolute _bastard_!”  
 _Of all things_ , Girolamo thinks, and laughs until his chest hurts too much. Leo looks sublime, even all wet and angry and with mud on his face, and he tells him so.  
“Shut up! You just… waded in. You waded into the river and then you… then you just went still and let the current take you.”  
He is not sure how to deal with Leonardo crying over him, and for a moment he considers smiling disdainfully and saying something, something insufferable and arrogant, “well, this is touching”, or “don’t be so maudlin, _artista_ ”, but stops himself.  
“I’m sorry.”  
“What? Come again? I have never heard you say that before, let me commit this moment to memory. ‘I’m sorry’? I thought you were dead!” Leonardo pauses, slightly out of breath. His eyes are red; he wipes them furiously. “Were you actually _trying_ to kill yourself?”  
“She wouldn’t let me.”  
“What are you talking about?”  
The high is wearing off and he suddenly feels very cold and very sad.  
“I can’t get up.”  
In the distance bells are tolling.  
“I’m getting the horses.”  
“No, no, you have to leave. They are coming for me, and I can’t ride.” An involuntary shiver.  
“Then I will tie you to your _fucking horse_ , but you’re coming with me.”  
Girolamo’s eyes fall shut again.

 

Sometimes he still wakes up clawing at the wings ( _I don’t want them, I don’t want them_ ), but then there are strong arms around him and the comforting presence of Leo next to him.  
“No wings,” the artist mutters. “You’re just you.”  
“Where are we?” he whispers.  
“Constantinople.” A kiss on the nape of his neck. “Remember?”  
He lies still for a moment, breathing in and out until the hollowness in his chest starts dissipating.  
“Yes,” he says, has to breathe life back into the months since that day.  
“I remember.”


End file.
